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" November 13i987 • Vol. 18, No. 46 750 Outside of D.C./Baltimore Areas
4
attending an anti-Gay, conservative-dominated
conference on AIDS next week
that has been disguised as a non-partisan
"follow-up" to last June's Third Inter-national
AIDS Conference.
Urvashi Vaid, media director of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and
Vic Basile, executive director of the Human
Rights Campaign Fund, said the National
Conference on HIV, scheduled for
November 15-18 in D.C., is stacked with
Section A
Pickpocket still at it 3
Up 271 cases since August 7
Emmy for 'Before Stonewall' ..14
Mass. bill teeters 15
Section B
Wooff and Bloomsbury B-1
Tuning in Lesbian soap B-5
Basketball league forms B-9
Time & chance happeneth
THE GAY WEEKLY OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
First-of-a-kind custody victory in California Batey case
• by Joan O'Connor
A San Diego Superior Court judge,
ruling in a bitterly contested custody case
last week, agreed to let 16-year-old Brian
Biltey remain with his deceased father's
Gay lover rather than return custody to
Brian's mother.
The case is apparently the first of its
kind in which a Gay spouse of adeceased -
parent has become the.legal 'guardian
even though a heterosexual parent has
also sought custody: In a 1977 custody
case in Colorado, custody of a child Was
,- awarded to the female lover of a
- deceased mother rather than to the
mother's sister and brother-in-law. _
• In last week's decision, Superior Court
Judge Judith McConnell granted
custody of Brian to Craig Corbett, the
lover of Brian's father, Frank 40,4, Who
died last June of complications.
associated With AIDS.MOCOnn011basthd - •
her decision on Corbett's. ability to
provide. Brian With':a •"stable and
• wholesome environment." • _
:C4*44 494 a.landscape designer...
Who liveslit_PalricSpiiiiisceatif4 he and
Frank Ratik • had. been Idvera for IS
• years.- - -
• "It's 4t; terrific victory,'" said Carol • ' ••'-` BrianBatey won Ms case to reniaki iii thecustody of his deceased father's lover, Craig
. , Continued on page 11 • Corbett (right).
Activists
eye Kennedy
cautiously
'Is he a Bork
in sheep's clothing?'
by Lisa M. Keen
While most Gay legal activists this week
acknowledged that US. Supreme Court
nominee Anthony Kennedy is probably the
best Gays can expect to get from the Reagan
Administration, at least one attorney—
referring to rejected ultra-conservative
nominee Robert Bork—voiced concern
that Kennedy could be "a Bork in sheep's
clothing."
Kennedy, who currently serves on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit,
has written two opinions in Gay-related
cases in California—both opinions decided
against the Gay plaintiffs. He also
participated in circuit court panel rulings on
two other Gay-related cases—one which
ruled for the Gay plaintiffs, one against.
• ,Izr a•,1980 case inv.olving.two MCA and
•••-<90e,*003lnkiiktIvelc disnignited from their
Navy jobs because of homoseluality,
=XenzindY uPheki the. NavY's PolicY
diScharging.Gays.but
have some constitutional rights to privacy.
Five years later, he wrote a panel opinion
which upheld an Immigration and
Naturalization Service decision to deport an
Australian man despite his 12-year
marriage-like relationship with an Ameri-can
man. Even though Kennedy's opinion
in the immigration case was less generous in
its assessment of the constitutional rights of
the Gay Australian man, he was willing to
assume "for analytic purposes" that the
couple's "marriage" was valid.
The Navy case, Beller v. Middendolf
involved the challenges of Dennis Beller,
Mary Saal, and James Miller that their right
to due process had been violated in their
discharges from the Navy. Saal, an air traffic
controller, signed a statement acknowledg-ing
that she had homosexual relations with
another Navy member. Miller, a yeoman
second class, acknowledged having sex with
two male civilians in Taiwan. Beller, a Navy
weatherman, acknowledged having homo-sexual
relations with other Navy men and
with being involved in Gay political
organizations. Beller and Seal were
discharged in 1975, Miller in 1976, under
the Navy's policy that military personnel
"involved in homosexuality are military
liabilities who cannot be tolerated in a
military organization." The Navy later
revised its policy to allow in some cases the
retention of persons who engaged in
homosexual activity "on a single occasion"
and who do not "profess or demonstrate
proclivity to repeat" such acts.
Kennedy in Beller and D.C. appeals
court Judge Bork—who was rejected lost
month as President Reagan's first choice to
fill the vacant Supreme Court seat—in
Dronenburg v. Zech both • upheld the
constitutionality of the Navy's policy. But
Continued on page 13
Activists say medical conference 'stacked'
••••:- . • Conservative backed AIDS .conference attracting few this weekend
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
. New Right political leaders who hold anti-
Officials with two national- Gay rights • Gay positions and who favor draconian
groups say they believe doctors and steps to address the AIDS epidemic.
government scientists are being duped into A spokesman for the Herndon, Virginia-based
Americans for a Sound AIDS Policy
(ASAP), the group organizing the
conference, denied the event is stacked in
favor of conservative leaders and said the
conference will feature presentations by
prominent scientists, including Dr. Robert
Gallo and Dr. Henry Masur of the National
Institutes of Health.
Vaid and Basile counter that the
conference organizers may have succeeded
in attracting some reputable scientists but
that these scientists will be overshadowed
by such New Right figures as Rep. William
Dannemeyer (R-Calif.), U.S. Secretary of
Education William Bennett, White House
Domestic Policy Chief Gary Bauer, and
presidential AIDS commission members
Cory Servaas and Theresa Crenshaw.
Sources with the Department of Health
and Human Services and with the District's
hotel industry, meanwhile, say that initial
plans by conference organizers to duplicate
the highly publicized International AIDS
Conference fell apart last month. The
sources, who spoke only on the Condition
they not be identified, said it became clear
then that only a tiny fraction of the
thousands who once were expected to
attend the ASAP event have actually
registered for the conference.
- Hundreds of hotel rooms in at least three
District hotels, including the Hyatt Regency
and the Grand Hyatt, were released, causing
hotel officials to complain about possible
loss of replacement reservations.
A decision to reserve DAR Constitu-tional
Hall for the conference plenary
sessions had to be cancelled, conference
employee Carolee Morrison said, after less
than 300 doctors registered for the event.
Morrison said the conference sent
invitations to 140,000 physicians, who were
told the conference had been accredited by
the American Medical Association as a
means of providing doctors official credits
for continuing medical education.
W. Shepherd Smith, president of ASAP
and chairman of the conference organizing
committee, said ASAP was invited to take
on the task of organizing the conference
several months after a group of physicians
concerned about AIDS started planning the
conference on their own.
Smith said the physicians' committee
established the conference agenda and
invited conference speakers before he
became involved. He said that the initial list
of speakers "appeared" to be weighted
toward a conservative point of view.
Since taking over the organizing, Smith
said, he has extended invitations to liberal
members of Congress as well as a more
"balanced" group of government officials,
Continued on page 10

" November 13i987 • Vol. 18, No. 46 750 Outside of D.C./Baltimore Areas
4
attending an anti-Gay, conservative-dominated
conference on AIDS next week
that has been disguised as a non-partisan
"follow-up" to last June's Third Inter-national
AIDS Conference.
Urvashi Vaid, media director of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and
Vic Basile, executive director of the Human
Rights Campaign Fund, said the National
Conference on HIV, scheduled for
November 15-18 in D.C., is stacked with
Section A
Pickpocket still at it 3
Up 271 cases since August 7
Emmy for 'Before Stonewall' ..14
Mass. bill teeters 15
Section B
Wooff and Bloomsbury B-1
Tuning in Lesbian soap B-5
Basketball league forms B-9
Time & chance happeneth
THE GAY WEEKLY OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
First-of-a-kind custody victory in California Batey case
• by Joan O'Connor
A San Diego Superior Court judge,
ruling in a bitterly contested custody case
last week, agreed to let 16-year-old Brian
Biltey remain with his deceased father's
Gay lover rather than return custody to
Brian's mother.
The case is apparently the first of its
kind in which a Gay spouse of adeceased -
parent has become the.legal 'guardian
even though a heterosexual parent has
also sought custody: In a 1977 custody
case in Colorado, custody of a child Was
,- awarded to the female lover of a
- deceased mother rather than to the
mother's sister and brother-in-law. _
• In last week's decision, Superior Court
Judge Judith McConnell granted
custody of Brian to Craig Corbett, the
lover of Brian's father, Frank 40,4, Who
died last June of complications.
associated With AIDS.MOCOnn011basthd - •
her decision on Corbett's. ability to
provide. Brian With':a •"stable and
• wholesome environment." • _
:C4*44 494 a.landscape designer...
Who liveslit_PalricSpiiiiisceatif4 he and
Frank Ratik • had. been Idvera for IS
• years.- - -
• "It's 4t; terrific victory,'" said Carol • ' ••'-` BrianBatey won Ms case to reniaki iii thecustody of his deceased father's lover, Craig
. , Continued on page 11 • Corbett (right).
Activists
eye Kennedy
cautiously
'Is he a Bork
in sheep's clothing?'
by Lisa M. Keen
While most Gay legal activists this week
acknowledged that US. Supreme Court
nominee Anthony Kennedy is probably the
best Gays can expect to get from the Reagan
Administration, at least one attorney—
referring to rejected ultra-conservative
nominee Robert Bork—voiced concern
that Kennedy could be "a Bork in sheep's
clothing."
Kennedy, who currently serves on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit,
has written two opinions in Gay-related
cases in California—both opinions decided
against the Gay plaintiffs. He also
participated in circuit court panel rulings on
two other Gay-related cases—one which
ruled for the Gay plaintiffs, one against.
• ,Izr a•,1980 case inv.olving.two MCA and
•••-<90e,*003lnkiiktIvelc disnignited from their
Navy jobs because of homoseluality,
=XenzindY uPheki the. NavY's PolicY
diScharging.Gays.but
have some constitutional rights to privacy.
Five years later, he wrote a panel opinion
which upheld an Immigration and
Naturalization Service decision to deport an
Australian man despite his 12-year
marriage-like relationship with an Ameri-can
man. Even though Kennedy's opinion
in the immigration case was less generous in
its assessment of the constitutional rights of
the Gay Australian man, he was willing to
assume "for analytic purposes" that the
couple's "marriage" was valid.
The Navy case, Beller v. Middendolf
involved the challenges of Dennis Beller,
Mary Saal, and James Miller that their right
to due process had been violated in their
discharges from the Navy. Saal, an air traffic
controller, signed a statement acknowledg-ing
that she had homosexual relations with
another Navy member. Miller, a yeoman
second class, acknowledged having sex with
two male civilians in Taiwan. Beller, a Navy
weatherman, acknowledged having homo-sexual
relations with other Navy men and
with being involved in Gay political
organizations. Beller and Seal were
discharged in 1975, Miller in 1976, under
the Navy's policy that military personnel
"involved in homosexuality are military
liabilities who cannot be tolerated in a
military organization." The Navy later
revised its policy to allow in some cases the
retention of persons who engaged in
homosexual activity "on a single occasion"
and who do not "profess or demonstrate
proclivity to repeat" such acts.
Kennedy in Beller and D.C. appeals
court Judge Bork—who was rejected lost
month as President Reagan's first choice to
fill the vacant Supreme Court seat—in
Dronenburg v. Zech both • upheld the
constitutionality of the Navy's policy. But
Continued on page 13
Activists say medical conference 'stacked'
••••:- . • Conservative backed AIDS .conference attracting few this weekend
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
. New Right political leaders who hold anti-
Officials with two national- Gay rights • Gay positions and who favor draconian
groups say they believe doctors and steps to address the AIDS epidemic.
government scientists are being duped into A spokesman for the Herndon, Virginia-based
Americans for a Sound AIDS Policy
(ASAP), the group organizing the
conference, denied the event is stacked in
favor of conservative leaders and said the
conference will feature presentations by
prominent scientists, including Dr. Robert
Gallo and Dr. Henry Masur of the National
Institutes of Health.
Vaid and Basile counter that the
conference organizers may have succeeded
in attracting some reputable scientists but
that these scientists will be overshadowed
by such New Right figures as Rep. William
Dannemeyer (R-Calif.), U.S. Secretary of
Education William Bennett, White House
Domestic Policy Chief Gary Bauer, and
presidential AIDS commission members
Cory Servaas and Theresa Crenshaw.
Sources with the Department of Health
and Human Services and with the District's
hotel industry, meanwhile, say that initial
plans by conference organizers to duplicate
the highly publicized International AIDS
Conference fell apart last month. The
sources, who spoke only on the Condition
they not be identified, said it became clear
then that only a tiny fraction of the
thousands who once were expected to
attend the ASAP event have actually
registered for the conference.
- Hundreds of hotel rooms in at least three
District hotels, including the Hyatt Regency
and the Grand Hyatt, were released, causing
hotel officials to complain about possible
loss of replacement reservations.
A decision to reserve DAR Constitu-tional
Hall for the conference plenary
sessions had to be cancelled, conference
employee Carolee Morrison said, after less
than 300 doctors registered for the event.
Morrison said the conference sent
invitations to 140,000 physicians, who were
told the conference had been accredited by
the American Medical Association as a
means of providing doctors official credits
for continuing medical education.
W. Shepherd Smith, president of ASAP
and chairman of the conference organizing
committee, said ASAP was invited to take
on the task of organizing the conference
several months after a group of physicians
concerned about AIDS started planning the
conference on their own.
Smith said the physicians' committee
established the conference agenda and
invited conference speakers before he
became involved. He said that the initial list
of speakers "appeared" to be weighted
toward a conservative point of view.
Since taking over the organizing, Smith
said, he has extended invitations to liberal
members of Congress as well as a more
"balanced" group of government officials,
Continued on page 10